General Question

If you were trying to assess an individual's grasp of basic finance, which two questions would you ask them?

I’m trying to develop a quick survey for a group of entrepreneurs to gauge their knowledge in different areas. What questions would you ask someone to determine whether they understand key finance concepts important for starting a new business?

This question guages whether someone has even a fundamental, layman’s knowledge of accounting principles. The answer is: neither. A debit is a positive, or left-side, entry; a credit is a negative, or right-side, entry. The two terms have no subjective meanings whatsoever. Most people are shocked to learn that revenue is a (-) entry and that a revenue account has a negative balance; it’s counter-intuitive.

@SmashTheState With all due respect, and not intending to be confrontational, those aren’t questions for an entepreneur. They’re for an economist, political scientist, or philospher. The owner of a start-up business doesn’t sit around and ponder The Communist Manifesto. That person also doesn’t fret about the nation’s currency; he/she just wants to bring in some money!

How much capital do we need to set aside, for the worst case local/national/global scenario which might affect our product/service?

I don’t mean this to sound as if I’m bursting your bubble, but I’ve owned businesses wherein they had to survive some acutely tough times. None of those times were tied to mismanagement…things happen…CRAzy things happen…beyond our control.